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"The big ugly" is what Albany insiders call the end-of-session omnibus bill that can include all kinds of disparate issues that get packaged for an up-or-down vote.

That ugliness gets framed through horsetrading that legislative leaders carry out to broach the ideological chasm that separates the Republicans who rule the state Senate's roost, and the Democrats who reign in the state Assembly.

Tax issues have found their way into the 2015 session's denouement. It features the renewal of rent regulations, that quadrennial opportunity for Senate Republicans to win concessions from Assembly Democrats, who want to strengthen the rent rules and may have to give on a pet Senate initiative to get what they want for the tenants of New York City and its suburbs.

This year's "big ugly" could include making permanent the state's tax cap, and establishment of the education tax credit. The $150 million tax-credit legislation would allow individuals and businesses to target 75 percent of their state tax liability to private and parochial schools, or to public schools or the nonprofit foundations that serve local districts.

During Cuomo's first term, the state's 2 percent tax cap was enacted in the 2011 "big ugly," which included a clause stating that the cap would remain in effect, as long as rent controls were on the books.

Cuomo, whose daughters attended the Byram Hills public schools in Armonk, had made the tax-credit legislation for private and parochial schools a major piece of his 2015 agenda. Earlier in the session, Cuomo failed to win support for it during the March budget negotiations, in which the education tax credit was bundled with the Dream Act, which would have provided college tuition assistance to the children of undocumented immigrants.

The Democrats wanted the Dream Act. The Republicans and some Democrats — including all of the lower Hudson Valley's Senate Democrats — wanted the education tax cap. It was dropped when the final spending package was approved.

This time, Cuomo's education tax credit legislation was rewritten to make it more palatable to those who argued that the children of wealthy private school families might receive a good number of scholarships from donations made by individuals who obtained the tax credits.

Cuomo's latest plan sets aside $70 million in direct tax benefits to families earning less than $60,000 a year. Those families would receive a $500 a year credit on their state income taxes.

But Cuomo's new tax-credit also diminishes its support for public-school education.

Earlier versions of the bill would split the tax-credit proceeds between public and private schools, with donors to be given credits for up to 90 percent of their donations to either private school scholarship funds or public schools and their foundations. The current Cuomo plan would provide $120 million in tax credits for private school support, and just $30 million for public schools.

The education tax-credit plan has sparked an intense lobbying campaign by Catholic and Jewish leaders. Among New York's 400,000 private school students are 150,000 who attend Jewish days schools and yeshivas. Jewish organizations this year have emerged as a major force in this year's final push to enact Gov. Andrew Cuomo's education tax credit program.

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Allen Fagin, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, center, with Eric Goldstein, right, CEO of UJA-Federation of NY, spoke at a press conference in Manhattan on June 8, 2015 to call on the state Legislature to enact the education tax credit.(Photo: David McKay Wilson/The Journal News)

Representatives of three Jewish organizations — UJA-Federation of New York, the Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America, held a press conference outside Cuomo's office in Manhatan on Monday.

"Our parents pay taxes just like everyone else," said Orthodox Union Executive Vice President Allen Fagin. "And we are relieving the state of an enormous burden by educating so many students. We are the best bargain every year."

Several downstate Democratic Assembly members — who also happen to be Jewish — have been targeted with robo-calls and mailings, urging constituents to lobby their representative to back Cuomo's plan, said Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, who is Jewish. She said she met with six New York City-area Democratic Jewish Assembly members on Monday to discuss their response to the campaign.

State Assembly member Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, says she opposes the education-tax credit programn for public and private schools.(Photo: Contributed photo.)

"There was an expectation that if we were Jewish, we would support it," said Paulin. "But I'm still opposed to the basic concept."

Whether Cuomo's bill will actually come to a vote remains uncertain as legislators look to the session's end on June 17.

Assemblyman David Buchwald, D-White Plains, whose district has been targeted with mailings and robocalls, told Tax Watch he would vote against the governor's bill, if it comes for a vote.

Paulin is wondering if it will be bundled in the final legislative deal.

"A week is a long time between now and the end of session," said Paulin. "And whether it will come for a vote is a decision being made at a much higher level than your average legislator."